& EDITORIALS
Declare among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard;
publish, and conceal not; Jeremiah 50:2
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2017 wimmn Best Humor Column- On the Porch
ON THE PORCH by Will Davis
It
Our water pressure at home was down to noth-
ing, and taking a shower felt more like standing
under a leaky gutter.
Finally I did what I always do when I have a
problem: I called my county commissioner Eddie Row-
land. Just kidding. I don't expect Eddie to solve all my
problems. But in the past, whenever we've had low water
pressure, it was usually because something had happened
at the county water tank over on Rumble Road in Smarr.
You know, maybe a cow had bumped into it, or someone
climbed to the top and spray-painted "Billy Bob loves
Charlene" in John Deere green spray paint (excuse my
1990s country song reference), tripping the water gauge.
Unfortunately, Rowland said everything was fine at the
water tank. It was looking like a personal problem
To be sure, I called and asked the county water depart-
ment to check it out. They called back later that afternoon.
"Mr. Davis" she said. "The problem is with your regula-
tor and that's on your side of the meter so we can't fix it.
You'll have to do it:'
I thanked them for checking and started to hang up.
"Ummm, Mr. Davis?" she added.
"Yes?"
"When our employee went to the door your little boy
answered the door;' she said.
"Oh really?" I said, wondering what was coming next.
"He told us that he was 4, and that he was at home all
alone:'
Well, isn't that interesting? I begged her not to call
DFACS and assured her that my teenage son was some-
where in the home. Our little
boy has a vivid imagination
and likes to run his mouth. She
laughed, and my next call, of
course, was to the house to get
big brother offthe couch.
With that problem addressed,
I set about to solve the origi-
nal problem: Fixing our water
pressure. I did not know what
a regulator was, and I didn't
even know where to find it. I
couldn't find it at the meter, but
finally found what I suspected
to be a regulator in my garage.
Through the power of YouTube,
I convinced myself that I didn't
really need to replace the regulator. Just a good deaning
would probably fix the problem I spent the next hour
fumbling with this piece of pipe, removing it, running
water through it, and finally re-installing it. I turned the
water back on and voila! The water pressure was .just as
bad as before.
OK, so maybe it did need replacing. Again, thanks to the
power of Do-It-Yourself Youtube videos, I had installed a
new regulator in 30 minutes and the water pressure was
the best it had ever been, like a geyser.
I am not a handy person. I have never changed my own
oil. But I have found that with the power of the internet,
there are an astouding number of things regular klutzes
like myself can do.
When the engine of my F-150 wouldn't turn over, I used
the internet to pinpoint the issue to a fuel pump fuse. I
fixed my problem for $3.
When we were at the beach last month, my step-dad's
vehicle started making shuddering noises and leaking oil.
A quick internet search discovered a common problem
with that model. When he got the car to the shop, they
confirmed it was exactly what the internet told us it was.
Jordan Harbin of Harbin Repairs here in Forsyth has an
incredible talent for electronics He can take apart com-
puters and put them back together. He can build comput-
ers to run Christmas decorations synchronized to music.
He's barely out of high school.
"Jordan" I asked him one day. "How did you learn all
this stuff?"
"From watching YouTube videos" he replied.
We blame a lot of problems on modern technolog); but
it's good to remember the miracles it brings as well. Now
I'm just waiting for when YouTube can watch my 4 year
old.
the Monroe C~mnty
www. MyMCR net
is published every week byThe Monroe County Reporter Inc.
Will Davis, President Robert M. Williams Jr Vice President
Cheryl 5. Williams, Secretary-Treasurer
STAFF
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Publisher/Editor Business Manager
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Publication No. USPS 997-840
PEACH STATE POLITICS by Kyte Wingfield
dC" onservatives had much to expert reports, and conducted nearly
J' cheer in the rulings the U.S. 100 depositions, induding 29 expert
,Supreme Court handed depositions. Florida thus had a more-
down toward the end of than-ample opportunity to gather its
its latest term. But Georgians of all evidence and then present it at a one-
political stripes should be dismayed
by the very last decision released.
Georgia had anticipated the end
of one line oflitigions assault in the
long-running "water wars:' A Special
Master (attorney) appointed by
the high court had recommended
dismissing Florida's lawsuit that seeks
to curtail the water Georgia's cit-
ies and farmers consume from the
Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint
river basin. But rather than accept
the Special Master's advice, the court
voted 5-4 to send the case back to
him for further inquiry.
The five-member majority wants
more information about Florida's
proposal to reduce Georgia's water
usage. Our southern neighbor con-
tends the seafood industry in Apala-
chicola Ba) home to such delectables
as oysters and shrimp, needs more
fresh water from the north.
Yet the majority noted the central
issue in the case is whether the facts
show"the benefits of the (appor-
tionment to Florida) substantially
outweigh the harm that might result"
for Georgia. And as Justice Clar-
ence Thomas argued in his excellent
dissent, there As no question on that
matter. A fair reading of the already-
voluminous record makes dear
Florida cannot win.
"During their 18 months of dis-
covery;' Thomas writes, "the par-
ties produced 7.2 million pages of
documents, served 130 third-party
subpoenas, issued more than 30
month trial In short, we have all
the evidence we need to decide this
case now. We should have done so."
Remember, it's not whether restrict-
ing our water use could possibly
produce any benefits to
Apalachicola's seafood
industry- although that
is far from certain - but
whether those benefits
would "substantially
outweigh" the harm to
Georgia. Consider some
of the facts Thomas
marshals.
First, there's the
sheer difference in size
between the two states
within this river basin:
"In relative terms, Geor-
gia accounts for 98% of
the population (in the
basin) and 99% of the economic pro-
), 's
duction. That alone makes Florida
burden of proof tougher to meet
But that's not all there is. To hear
Florida's attorneys tell it, the cost to
Georgia would be $35.2 million, to
pay for additional conservation mea-
sures. As Thomas observes, however,
that's only a small part of the story:
"The real cost of such a cap, which
includes nongovernmental costs like
welfare losses, would range anywhere
from $191 million, to more than $2
billion per year;) Thomas writes. ' nd
the cap would trigger resulting losses
in Georgia's gross regional product
and employment, totaling around
$322 million and 4,173 jobs annually"
It is dearly impossible for Florida's
speculative benefit to match this
harm to Georgia, much less to "sub-
stantiaUy outweigh" it.
"Regardless of the measure used;'
Thomas writes, "this harm dwarfs
the value of Florida's entire fishing
industry in Apalachicola Bay, which
produces annual revenues of $11.7
million. And it greatly
outweighs the value of
the additional oysters
that a cap on Georgia's
use might produce - i.e
no more than a few
hundred thousand dol-
lars:'
Even the incomplete
figure of $35.2 million
in costs to Georgia beats
that.
In a sense, however,
Florida is already maxi-
its benefit of
mizing
filing this lawsuit. While
it merely delays the
inevitable, every bit of delay conjures
a bit more unfounded doubt about
metro Atlanta's future viability. That
doubt, and the marginal comparative
advantage Florida might garner as a
result, was the main reason for the
lawsuit.
In that respect, Florida was the
winner here - well, Florida and the
phalanx of lawyers billing hours on
each side. This is one the Supreme
Court truly got wrong.
The CEO of the Georgia Public
Policy Foundation, Kyle Winglield's
column runs in newspapers around
the state.
JUST THE WAY IT IS by Sloan Oliver
El.acVeryone acknowledges that the
media has been given a special
e in American society:.
is
given that place because
the United States can only function
properly if we have an informed dec-
torate that receives honest, objective,
unbiased information. A "free press"
has been charged with providing that
honest, objective, unbiased informa
tion. They are not supposed to be part
of the political system, because it is they
who should keep the political system
honest and fair. The media has been
called the "Fourth Estate') following
the three branches of government -
the executive, the legislative, and the
judidar) . The Founding Fathers estab-
lished a series of checks and balances
to insure each of the three branches,
along with the press, would maintain
its power by checking the power of any
other branch seeking to gain too much
power.
WE'VE ALL learned how checks
and balances should work- Congress
can pass a law, the president can veto
the law, and Congress can override that
veto. The executive appoints judges
who rule on the constitutionality of
the laws Congress can remove judges
(rarely done), and so on. Meanwhile,
the media reports on the good, the bad,
and the ugly of all three branches. Basi-
we have a working, adversarial
rdationship with each branch striving
to gain and maintain power which, in
the process, keeps the other branches
from becoming too dominant. In our
scheme of checks and balances, we
must also consider political parties
who work to gain and maintain their
own power - at the expense of the
other part . So; we have Congress, the
president, Republicans, and Democrats
working to advance their agenda while
the judiciary and the media are non-
partisan players who should insure the
system remains fair and honest.
THE ABOVE is the ideal - how
our governmenta} system of checks
and balances should work. However,
what happens if the media takes sides
with one political party and becomes a
partisan phyer? What happens when
the media advances the agenda of one
political party at the expense of the
other party? Answer - we no longer
have a fair means of receiving honest,
objective information, and our system
of checks and balances is broken. In
short, if the press sides with one politi-
cal party over the other, we have the
media of today who have activdy sided
with the Democrats to oppose the
Republicans.
ON A daily basis we see the complete
bias of the media in favor of the Demo-
crats at the expense ofthe Republicans
and of the country. The media bias
hurts the entire country because we
are not receiving honest, objective,
unbiased information. Rather, we are
receiving only "what the media wants
to tell us" And the media tells us only
the bad of the Republicans, the hor-
ribleness of Trump, and the goodness
of the Democrats. In other words, we
receive "fake news" because we are not
getting the truth. "Fake news" was a
term popularized by President Trump.
It is a spot on description of the biased
media that has gone "all
in)' for the Democrats. r
/
THE RECENT shoot-
hag at the Annapolis
Capital Gazette newspa-
per is a perfect example
of fake news. Jarrod Ra-
mos entered the newspa-
per and killed five people
with a shotgun. Almost
immediately, various
media outlets blamed
President Trump for
the shooting. No,
Trump didn't pull the
trigger but, according
to the media, he called
the media "fake news" and "enemy of
the people" and that drove Ramos to
do the shooting. In math, Ramos had
a grudge against the newspaper going
back to at least 2010 - five years before
Trump ever announced running for
president. However, the biased media
never lets facts get in the way of their
narrative or their hatred of Tnunp.
The story's fake news is that the media
blamed Trump. Trump is correct; by
lying to the people, the media is an
enemy to the math.
sto And ignoring a story is perhaps
the greatest power the press has. If the
story is never told, then, no one knows
about it.
THE BEST example of ignoring a
story centers on President Trump and
what the media has ignored about
his presidentT. By all accounts, the
United States is in the midst of one of
the greatest economic booms ever -
the unemployment rate is below 4%,
blacks and Hispanics are enjoying the
lowest unemployment rate in his-
tory; business regulations have been
slashed helping the economy to create
over 2 million jobs since Trump was
elected, historic tax cuts were enacted
that has led to economic relief for tens
of millions of Americans, and the
energy boom has led to
US energy independence.
In foreign affairs, ISIS has
been crushed, the United
States moved its embassy
to Jerusalem- Israel's
capital) NATO members
are starting to pay their
fair share for their com-
mon defense, and nuclear
disarmament and peace
with North Korea is actu-
ally possible. If President
Obama had those
accomplishments
-- that's all we~l hear~
However, Trump's
accomplishments are
being completely ignored by the press.
Instead, the biased media has spent
months and months covering a porn
star and a bogus Russian collusion
stor In this case, ignoring the story is
the fake news
PRESIDENT TRUMP has nominat-
ed XXXX to replace Anthony Kennedy
on the Supreme Court. The leftist cabal
immediatdy labeled that person a rac-
ist, sexist, homophobe, against women's
reproductive fights, etc etc. No matter
who Trump nominates, that person
will be opposed by every Democrat,
liberal) and the biased media. The left-
ist cabal is that predictable.
WEEKLY QUOTE: "The most
insidious power that the media has is
the power to ignore." - Talk show host,
Chris Plante.
FAKE NEWS is far more than just
reporting false information. After all,
it's easy to disprove erroneous facts.
In the Gazette newspaper shooting, it
didn't take long before people realized
that Ramos had a grudge against the
paper and that Tromp had nothing
to do with the shooting. That fake
news was quickly dispmven. By far the
largest example of fake news is news
that is sddom, if ever, reported. The
press is free to publish any story they so
desire. They are, also, free to ignore any
Sloan Oliver is a retired Army officer
He lives in Bolingbroke with his wife
Sandra. Email him at sloanoliver@
earthlinknet.
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